It’s insanity week

Adebayor hasn’t played a game in 78 weeks (or something) so he flies off to his country to train with the squad, and Togo say, “we promise he won’t play”.

Eduardo plays bits but keeps getting injured, so he meanders off to Croatia (you’ll recall he is Brazillian) to play for them.

Yup – it’s nonsense time when the nutters, twits, twerps and loonies who run “national” teams on behalf of the corrupt FIFA overlords who ban journalists for having the temerity to ask how much pay Sepp Blatter gets a year, get their hands on the players whose wages you and I pay.

I wouldn’t mind too much if playing for England meant a) you were born in England, and b) you were fit, but of course such basics have long been overthrown. If you great-granny dropped in to give birth to your grandmother on English soil then you can play for England. If you can hardly hobble onto the plane to Uzborkanistinstan you should travel so the manager “can have a look at him”.

The Harry-does-apoplexy story from Tottenham High Road over the fact that the knee wobbling L King has been picked for England would be amusing if it were not for the fact that we suffer from the same nonsense year after year.

But let us try and get something interesting out of all this. Here’s something: Vieira has been dropped by France, and by and large that is not too surprising, as he seems to have lost that style and poise that he had from the moment he appeared for the first time as a sub at Highbury and took over the whole show. Now, following the Lord Wenger’s pronoucement that maybe after all Diaby is Vieira II it is noteworthy that Diaby does have a chance to get injured not playing for Arsenal. Patrick it seems is now safe.

In fact France is looking a bit like Arsenal in disguise including, as it does, Bacary Sagna, William Gallas, Gael Clichy, Abou Diaby, and Samir Nasri . That’s five, (I think, let me check, un, deux, trois, yup five) and if they all play it will be worth trying to find a channel that shows France againstLithuania and then against Lithuania (I guess that must be east Lithuania and then west Lithuania).

I suppose we have to feel sorry for Almunia left at home all alone – unless he’s been called up and I missed it. But as far as I can see we don’t have any players playing for Spain, which is a relief and a half.

In 9 days it will all be over and we’ll know the disaster total – how many maimed, how many food poisoned, how many tapped up by foreign agents, how many coming back without the form they went with, how many who have turned into turnips, how many have been arrested by KGB Chelsea agents and held in darkened cells for days on end. Still that’s Stamford Bridge for you.

Overall, I suppose if you support Leeds or York or someone, it gives you something to shout about. Me, I just like shouting about the stupidity of it all.

(c) Tony Attwood, dreaming of a world in which international football is outlawed, and international managers are forced to spend hours in meeting rooms with ex-bankers listening to them moan about how the government has let them down. 2009.

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9 comments to It’s insanity week

Players do love to play for their country team, not least for the media exposure. Think of our old friend Ashley.
I like the Euro and the World Cup and their make-believe of a fight for honor and true love of your motherland. Really what’s so totally wrong about that? I don’t see how those are possible without niggling international weeks. Although, admittedly, these breaks feel like abstinence from sex.

Eduardo was on the bench for us so the match will be good. The only thing worrying is the traveling. Vieira has been consistently injured and unfortunately it looks like his time is running out which is a shame.

Although we are paying in part, the players wages it’s not the majority of our money that is going to paying them (i.e tv money etc). If I’m right in thinking, a player earning £100,000 a week will see 40% go to the treasury, meaning over a year £2milllion should come back to us. (I don’t know why that’s relevant)

I partly sympathize with you but I’m also well aware how much it means to the players themselves, they think it’s an honor. Guys like Carragher and King who don’t want to play for the nat’l team are looked upon with disdain by a lot of foreign players who deem it a great honor.

Denilson never gets called up by Dunga (he prefers the much overrated Anderson) so he’ll be left in London too. As a Brazilian supportive of my nat’l team, I have mixed feelings about it because I’m also a gooner who doesn’t want to see him injured. But I really would like him to get that recognition, esp. because I know how much it would mean to him.

Also — I don’t sneer at Eduardo’s taking of Croatian nationality and embracing that country as his. He went there at the age of 15 and struggled very much to assimilate into their football and their culture. But he did that, fell in love with Croatia and married a Croatian woman. The Croatian people embraced him as their own. Brazil ignored him for its national team, Croatia saw his talent. Now that Brazil has finally seen his talent, our national federation has come out and admitted they were wrong to let him go. Eduardo has 2 countries, just like I do (Brazil and US). I don’t sneer at that.

Tony I don’t think the International game should be outlawed. It is part of the beautiful game and it should remain so. The only think is, there should be a compensation package for the clubs since they pay their wages.

Another thing is, let a football person who has some brains ( not all football person have got that thing got brain, ask Platini) run organisations such as FIFA and UEFA instead of the pensioners that we have running the 2 biggest football organisations.

Hiddink is a professional and will never let one thing overrule another. For him Chelsea and Russia are two different things. After all these years of coaching Hiddink should be trusted.
Regarding Eduardo, he left Brazil and I don’t think Brazil ignored him. OK he may not have got his chance at his previous club before he left for Croatia but that doesn’t mean they ignored him. Eduardo has stated he will like to play for a Brazilian club (the name I can’t remember) before he retires. He has two countries but it seems he really wanted to make it in his birth country but at the time Zagreb came in for him, it was too good an offer.

I want to weigh in on the anti-international break side of things. I am a football fan as well as being an arsenal fan (not always the same thing!) and I will happily watch football at any time of the day/year, of any standard, in any setting etc so understand that I do appreciate, and enjoy, the big international tournaments. BUT I enjoy them in a very different way than I do to my arsenal-football obsession.
And at this time of year, when the league and cups, and championships and everything are all getting exciting it bugs the heck out of me that we have a flipping international break!
I’d love (and I know it will never happen for practical as well as political considerations unfortunately) for the two to be separated completely. Keep international fixtures for the summer, shorten the season, and keep the two separate.
Sigh. Its possibly a result of being welsh, and rarely being bothered by the international fixtures apart from the first two of any qualifying group (where we still harbour dreams of making it to a big tournament, only to have said dreams shattered by a plucky narrow loss to a much better and bigger country, and a devastatingly stupid mauling at the hands of afellow so-called minnow!) but I’m just counting down the days till the REAL football gets going again…

Keep the internatinional fixtures for the end of the season, which without the international breaks can end at the beginning of may an let the national teams play there games in the month of may and beginning of june.
If a player gets injured he has time to recover until the beginning of the season.
Or if a player gets injured now in an international his FA should pay his wages instead of the club

It’s started. The rumours about our players is already underway.
The Sun have headlined on Clichy’s delight at Milan’s link and other news sites are now predicting Clichy will move.
The reason? This interview:

“I am not aware of it,” Clichy told L’Equipe when asked about Milan’s interest in his services.
“I am very happy at Arsenal.
“But the truth is that Milan are a mega club.
“You are [always] delighted to know that such a team are following you.”

It is absolutely meaningless. Clichy is being polite and diplomatic about another club. He’s not going to say that they are a bunch of low-life losers. Also no-one headlines on the “I am very happy at Arsenal.” line.
The tragedy is that so many Gooners will read the headlines and won’t use their brain. How long before the first “Well if he wants to go so much he can f*** off!” comment.
Journalists need headlines – we need to use our common sense.

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